If you have never heard of George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, you're not alone. The mustachioed Russian-Armenian mystic, cosmologist and composer has influenced artists, writers and thinkers from Frank Lloyd Wright to Timothy Leary to Keith Jarrett, yet his sphere of followers has always remained select.

The Red Mountain Study Group hasn't forgotten Gurdjieff’s philosophy, in which he contended that most people live in a state of hypnotic waking sleep. Books such as “Meetings with Remarkable Men,” “The Reality of Being,” and P.D. Ouspensky’s “In Search of the Miraculous” have been the group’s focus since it formed in 1959.

But for many of Gurdjieff’s followers, music is an integral part of the teachings. So it is no surprise that RMSG is bringing pianist Laurence Rosenthal, one of the most ardent proponents of Gurdjieff’s music, to Birmingham for a concert Sunday at the Birmingham Museum of Art.

To film and theater buffs, Rosenthal is known as a composer. Credits include movies such as “Inherit the Wind,” “A Raisin in the Sun, ” and “The Miracle Worker.” He is a seven-time Emmy nominee and twice was nominated for Academy Awards. To many Gurdjieff devotees, he is the foremost expert on Gurdjieff’s music.

Although Gurdjieff wasn’t a trained musician, he produced upwards of 300 compositions, all transcribed by the Russian composer Thomas de Hartmann.

“They were de Hartmann’s arrangements,” said Rosenthal last week. “Gurdjieff sang in a choir and played guitar and harmonium, but he was an amateur. At the same time he had an extraordinary musical imagination, sensitivity and creativity.”

But because of his technical shortfalls, Gurdjieff was unable to fully express himself, so de Hartmann took over.

“It was a unique collaboration,” Rosenthal said. “Gurdjieff would dictate to de Hartmann by singing or humming, whistling or playing. Even though the music came from Gurdjieff, without de Hartmann we wouldn’t have anything."

So what does this “cosmic” music sound like? A brief informal survey of YouTube may leave you scratching your head. Some Arabic modes, a little Mussorgsky and some Russian chant may enter the mix.

“There were various influences,” said Rosenthal. “Gurdjieff was brought up in a melting pot. His mother was Armenian. At the same time, he sang in the church choir, suffused with the music of the Russian Orthodox liturgy. He traveled in central Asia and Turkey, and absorbed near Eastern melodic style. De Hartmann skillfully found a way to incorporate it.”

By the time he met Gurdjieff in 1916, de Hartmann was already a prominent composer. His ballet, “La Fleurette Rouge,” was premiered in 1906 at the Russian imperial courts in St. Petersburg and Moscow, with Vaslav Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova and Michel Fokine dancing the principal roles. He remained a student of Gurdjieff in Paris from 1917 to 1929. Yet the musical soup that came from his collaboration with Gurdjieff is hard to define.

“De Hartmann was so faithful to Gurdjieff’s idiom that it’s hard to tell where one begins and the other ends,” said Rosenthal, who adapted some of this music in the score for the 1979 Peter Brooks movie, “Meetings With Remarkable Men.”

Rosenthal’s program today will be divided into three categories – folkloristic songs and dances from Armenians, Kurds and Turks, Dervish songs and dances, and sacred hymns.

As for what of Gurdjieff’s cosmology can be heard in this music remains unclear, even for Rosenthal.

“There are cases in which he tried to represent an idea,” he said. “For example, Gurdjieff taught that the universe operates on the basis of three cosmic laws, so in a few pieces he tried to show Holy Affirming, Holy Denying and Holy Reconciling. More often’s it’s subtler, more interior. People are struck by what they consider the simplicity of the music, even its banality. Some of it sounds like it’s from a Turkish bazaar. But once you past the surface it reveals something deeper. You begin to sense his individuality.”